As for Me
In the 1700s, a young man named James Taylor proposed marriage to his girlfriend, and a wedding date was set. Neither of them were Christians. James, in fact, so detested itinerant preachers that he often pelted them with rotten tomatoes or eggs.
Shortly before his wedding, one of John Wesley’s circuit riders entered town, and James, hearing of it, wanted to disrupt the meeting. But as James listened in the fringes of the crowd, the preacher quoted Joshua 24:15: But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
The words stuck James like an arrow.
When the day of his wedding arrived, the verse was still lodged in his thoughts. That morning James retired to the fields to think. He was about to take a wife, to establish a home, but he wasn’t serving the Lord. He knelt in the grass and earnestly asked Christ to be his Savior. By the time he finished praying, he was alarmed to discover it was time for the wedding.
Rushing to the chapel, he apologized for being late, and the ceremony proceeded. Then he shocked his bride and guests, by announcing he had become a Christian. He soon began witnessing to his new wife, but she remained resistant. Finally one day James came home so burdened for her that he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. There with a forceful hand he made her kneel beside him. Soon both were weeping, and there she, too, became a Christian.
Eight generations have since passed, each filled with Christian workers serving the Lord. Included among them is James Taylor’s great-grandson, Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, who opened the interior of China to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today’s Suggested Reading
Joshua 24:14–25

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15
Morgan, R. J. (2000). From this verse : 365 scriptures that changed the world (electronic ed.). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

How awesome to find out that John Wesley indirectly had a part in leading China to Jesus! WOW! This shows how one person’s obedience to the Lord can start a generational chain reaction that can alter the course of his entire family.

In my own family, my grandmother came to the Lord, and then began to pray for her family. Entire generations were blessed because she chose to serve the Lord. We are serving the Lord today and it all began with her decision back in the 1970’s and set off a chain reaction of blessing.

You too can set off a chain reaction for good or bad in your family by even one decision. Where will your decisions lead them? I pray with God’s help that I will lead my family down the blessed path of righteous living. I sincerely pray that by God’s grace my example will effect change in the generations beyond me long after I am gone, and that I will look down from the portals of heaven should Jesus tarry and see generations of righteous and Godly world changers effecting change in their families and on and on and on…. thus setting off a divine Holy Ghost, God-ordained, blessed chain reaction.

Be encouraged! Your obedience today can change your entire family!